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A Scare Over a Possible 'Superbug' Link to Bladder Infections

A fight is breaking out over the notion that antibiotics used in meat and poultry are harmful to humans. An ABC News report this week cites research showing a possible connection between the use of antibiotics in poultry and drug-resistant bladder infections in millions of women.

A reporter for FERN, Maryn McKenna, looked into research from Amee Mangus, epidemiologist at McGill University, who found that the E. coli responsible for bladder infections closely matched the bacteria found in chicken — and those bacteria had a high level of resistance, FERN said on its blog.

“We’re particularly interested in chickens,” the researcher said. “They in many cases are getting drugs from the time that they were in an egg all the way up to the time that they are slaughtered.”

More than 8 million women are at risk of bladder infections because the so-called superbugs are being transmitted to humans in the form of E. coli, ABC senior national correspondent Jim Avila wrote in a blog item.

Not so fast, says the National Chicken Council, which trotted out its own scientists to refute the claims. Randall Singer, DVM, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, reviewed the scientific literature referenced in the ABC report.

“The studies in question make the assumption that humans carrying these E. coli acquired them from poultry,” he said. “The strains did not originate in poultry and likely entered these farms from sources originating in human communities. Perhaps most importantly, the potential transmission of antibiotic resistant E. coli to humans says nothing about why these E. coli are antibiotic resistant in the first place. The resistances observed in these E. coli are common globally and are unlikely to be attributed to chickens given the few antibiotics available for use in poultry in the U.S.”

The debate over superbugs is sure to continue. Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter, (D-NY) recently released findings from a survey regarding the routine use of antibiotics in food animals.

“The survey found that while a small number of industry leaders provide antibiotic-free meat and poultry products, an overwhelming majority of food production companies routinely feed low-doses of antibiotics to healthy food-animals. Decades of research have shown that this kind of misuse leads to an increase in superbugs,” Rep. Slaughter said in a news release.

She has introduced legislation, Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), which would end the routine use of antibiotics on healthy animals. The bill, H.R. 965, has been referred to committee. Track its progress here.

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